Another month, another update to Google’s Developer Dashboard. It’s a site that gives budding app developers a peek into the Android ecosystem so they know which APIs they can target and which they should hold off on adopting until they’re a bit more widespread. Jelly Bean, technically defined as versions 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 of Google’s mobile operating system, is now on 48.6 percent of all Android devices. The latest bleeding edge version of the OS, 4.3, only powers 1.5 percent. As far as I know, only three 4.3 devices exist: the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, the ASUS Nexus 7, and HTC’s One.
Looking back a generation, we’re talking Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich here, that’s on one out of every five Android devices. ICS is what I would consider to be the first real decent version of Android that I wouldn’t mind giving to someone less technically adept. Moving further back to Android 2.3 Gingerbread, you’re looking at nearly three out of every ten devices using that version of the OS. Are version numbers even important? I used to think so, but now I don’t care. Really, almost no one sees Android. They see TouchWiz, they see Sense, they see whatever Sony calls their UI, you get the idea. As long as people can do the things they need to do, which more often than not means Facebook, email, and browse the web, then they don’t care if they’re on 4.0 or 4.3. You might hate that as an Android enthusiast, but such is life.
